


Dear Old Vassar

by katayla



Category: Betsy-Tacy Series - Maud Hart Lovelace
Genre: Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 08:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2766050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katayla/pseuds/katayla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It would be full of Sam anyway. Vassar would be full of him. Sam at Vassar! And all the chaperones in the world couldn't keep him out." -- Carney's House Party</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Old Vassar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spyglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spyglass/gifts).



> Thank you, betas!

1.

It was a cold Friday afternoon when Carney found her fiancé waiting for her in her piano stall. He sat on the piano bench, facing her with his hands behind his head.

"Sam! What are you doing here?" Carney did her best to sound stern, but she couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face.

"Aren't you happy to see me?" Sam sat up straight and grinned at her.

"You're going to get me kicked out!"

"Good. Then we can get married all the sooner." 

At that, Carney's smile faded and she held out her hands. "Are you awfully sorry to wait until I graduate?"

"I'm glad you'll have a degree . . . and I wish you could finish by tomorrow," Sam said, and drew her towards him. "Now, is that how you greet your fiancé who came all this way just to see you?"

Carney threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed him.

After a moment, she pulled back. "But you can't be in here! Men aren't allowed. Did you even get permission to be on campus?"

"See here, I don't need permission to see my own fiancée." And he reached for her again, but Carney stepped away.

"Sam, someone could've seen you."

"Oh, they wouldn't turn _me_ in."

And it was true, Sam could charm his way out of quite a lot, but the fear of the Vassar authorities was strong among a lot of the girls, especially the freshmen, and males were strictly forbidden from wandering around the campus. 

Still, when Sam kissed her again, she couldn't quite voice another objection.

2.

"Carney, you have a visitor," Sue and Peg chorused as Carney entered her sitting room. Isobel sat with Suzanne in her arms and didn't look up.

"He even said we could parade," Win said, eyes twinkling.

"Sam?" Carney said, the grin flashing across her face. "Where is he? Oh, I need to wash my hands, my face."

"He said to tell you that you already looked pretty and to just get down there," Peg said.

Regardless, Carney took a few minutes to freshen up. Her eyes sparkled in the mirror and her cheeks were flushed. Sam had called her last week and hadn't even hinted at visiting. That man!

When she entered the parlor downstairs, Sam stood up to greet her. He was shaved and wearing his best suit and not looking like Sam at all.

"Sam? Is everything all right?"

"Of course everything is all right! Why wouldn't it be"

"You look so . . . nice."

"Well, I like that!" Sam said. "I look nice all the time!"

But he ran his fingers through his hair until it was thoroughly rumpled and held out his hand to her. "Is that better?"

She ran to him and kissed his cheek. "You're right. You always look nice."

He tugged her next to him on the couch. 

"Carney," he said, and swallowed hard.

"Something _is_ wrong," Carney said.

"What! Nothing's wrong!"

"Then what is it?"

Sam reached into his pocket. "I want to do it right, Carney. I wanted to make it all official and--I saved enough money."

Carney's smile spread across her face. "Sam!"

"Look." He brought a box out of his pocket and opened it.

A huge ring sparkled at her.

"Oh Sam, it's beautiful."

He grinned and looked like Sam again. "A beautiful ring for a beautiful fiancée."

He took her hand and slipped the ring onto it.

"There! Now you can't get rid of me."

Carney couldn't say anything, but she threw her arms around Sam and hugged him as tightly as she could, and she thought he understood all the things she couldn't put into words.

3.

"As your official fiancé," Sam said. "I demand you dance every dance with me."

"You can have three," Carney said. "And I had to beg the Lady Principal for that many."

"I bet I could talk her into another one."

Carney tried to look stern. It was Sam's first Vassar dance and he seemed determined to break every rule. She'd almost given up on making him shave and he kept tugging at the tie she'd so carefully straightened for him.

"Besides," she said. "You'd break the girls' hearts if you didn't dance with them."

Even if her friends didn't like Sam as much as they did, they'd have clamored to dance with him, a real man, who wasn't even related to anyone. And he was so big hearted, she knew he'd do his best to dance with every girl there.

The chords of the first dance began and Sam swept her onto the floor.

"How about a turkey trot?" Sam whispered in her ear.

"I'm the vice president! I'm supposed to be setting an example for the underclassmen!"

"Set them an example of how to have fun."

Sam teased, but he kept to Vassar-approved dances, both with Carney and with the other girls he danced with. 

An hour later, he came up to Carney for their second dance. There was the usual lack of boys, so Carney hadn't had a partner for the last dance. At other dances, you were supposed to go to the powder room when that happened. At Vassar, it happened so often that girls stood in knots all around the edges of the dance floor. Carney stood with Win and Winkie. She and Win had been trying to convince Winkie to dance with one of the boys from Win's father's school.

"Let the other girls have them," Winkie said. "Some of the poor freshies are still getting used to life without boys."

Sam slid an arm around Carney's waist. "Why'd you all come to a girls' school anyway?"

"Ahem," a chaperone said from a few feet away, nodding at Sam's arm.

"I can't touch you?" Sam said, in a lowered voice.

Winkie raised her eyebrows. "You never know what touching might lead to."

"Why, you might end up having to marry Carney," Win said.

Sam grinned and picked up Carney's left hand. "I can handle that."

Carney was watching the chaperone, who had started to move in their direction. "Sam," she hissed.

"Oh fine," he said, and let go of her. "But in Deep Valley, we could disappear into a dark corner without anyone caring."

" _Sam_." Carney's cheeks grew hot.

"Go dance," Win suggested. "You can touch her there."

So Carney pulled Sam out to the dance floor.

"Thank you for coming," she said. "I know these dances aren't really your scene."

"You're here, aren't you?"

Carney smiled. "If the chaperones weren't watching, I'd kiss you right now."

4.

Isobel squeezed Carney's arm. "Are you ready?"

Carney looked at the long daisy chain that stretched out in front of them. "Ready."

And they fell in line behind Win and Winkie and in front of Sue and Peg. Two years ago, they had worn themselves out picking daisies and now they were walking through the chain themselves! And two years ago, Carney remembered, she had met Sam.

Sam, who beamed at her as the Daisy Chain opened up and the seniors took their seats in the grandstand. Sam, who clapped as her name was called and Carney stood to receive her diploma. Sam who waited patiently as Carney's family congratulated her and then took her by the arm.

"You're all mine now," he whispered.

"Not for two more weeks," Carney said.

Sam grimaced. "I can't wait too long."

Carney bumped into his side and he put his arm around her. "You've waited two years."

"I waited for you to graduate," he said. "I see a diploma right there."

"Two weeks, Sam," Carney said. "And then--"

"I'm never letting you out of my sight."

5.

"It looks just the same," Carney murmured, as they drove onto the Vassar grounds.

Sam grinned at her. "Should I be worried about the Lady Principal kicking me off campus?"

"You're lucky that never happened."

"That wasn't luck," Sam said. "That was charm."

"I don't see that many girls," Ted said from the back seat. He shifted in his seat, looking back and forth.

"Oh, they'll be on you soon enough," Sam said. "Remember, boys are forbidden fruit here."

"Don't encourage him," Carney said.

Ted had a habit of falling hard for Judy's friends, much to his sister's dismay.

"I never was so popular as when I came to dances here," Sam said, as he parked the car in front of Main.

Carney looked up the building. There was the tower where she and Isobel had roomed together. Behind them was the hill she had climbed so often.

And there, coming toward them, was her daughter. Judy's hair was rumpled like her father's and her dimple flashed like her mother's. She held out her hands.

"Welcome to Vassar."


End file.
